Tumbling was put together in one wild night last December. I’d spent all semester building some software in MAX/MSP that would, basically, slice up sound into small slivers and transpose each slice (to fit it into a scale). I should have told someone what I was imagining; they might have told me that its called ‘granular synthesis,’ its pretty much Modern Computer Music 101, and I could have downloaded a patch lickety split. Sure I had some cool stuff going on, like you could mic a speaker and use a Wii to play the feedback like a wild instrument, but I was basically re-inventing the wheel. I used it to gradually unhinge a round.
I made Canopy this morning. While I did use a little granular synthesis on the drums (this time with a patch designed by my friend Ken Stewart), the thrust of the study was another technique entirely — yet the result is similar. I set up a switch that would turn on and off the vocal tracks, and then I drove that switch with the audio from the drum track itself. When the drums were loud, the vocals turned on, and when the drums were quiet, they vocals turned off. The result is a stuttering that is both regular and erratic. It is also a study in the kind of smooth, slow transitions I’m attracted to.
I know I’m late to the game, but I’m really fascinated by that technique — using sound from one track to drive an effect on another. Our opposition between material and technique is revealed to be an artificial one. Material can be recognized to be a technique. Forms are forces. There is not a simple causal relationship between the Technique/Method/Creator and the creation — the creation itself has creative potential. When that self-referential relationship is cultivated, feedback loops begin to drive the creation with a natural momentum. When that relationship is optimized (as in Contact Improvisation), generation becomes effortless.
This is where much “process music” gets it exactly backwards. All music is process music, but “process music” effectively flattens that fertile, generative nonlinear dynamic into a one-way textile mill.
Tumbling, Canopy: Two Studies
September 28, 2008Two similar studies.
Tumbling was put together in one wild night last December. I’d spent all semester building some software in MAX/MSP that would, basically, slice up sound into small slivers and transpose each slice (to fit it into a scale). I should have told someone what I was imagining; they might have told me that its called ‘granular synthesis,’ its pretty much Modern Computer Music 101, and I could have downloaded a patch lickety split. Sure I had some cool stuff going on, like you could mic a speaker and use a Wii to play the feedback like a wild instrument, but I was basically re-inventing the wheel. I used it to gradually unhinge a round.
I made Canopy this morning. While I did use a little granular synthesis on the drums (this time with a patch designed by my friend Ken Stewart), the thrust of the study was another technique entirely — yet the result is similar. I set up a switch that would turn on and off the vocal tracks, and then I drove that switch with the audio from the drum track itself. When the drums were loud, the vocals turned on, and when the drums were quiet, they vocals turned off. The result is a stuttering that is both regular and erratic. It is also a study in the kind of smooth, slow transitions I’m attracted to.
I know I’m late to the game, but I’m really fascinated by that technique — using sound from one track to drive an effect on another. Our opposition between material and technique is revealed to be an artificial one. Material can be recognized to be a technique. Forms are forces. There is not a simple causal relationship between the Technique/Method/Creator and the creation — the creation itself has creative potential. When that self-referential relationship is cultivated, feedback loops begin to drive the creation with a natural momentum. When that relationship is optimized (as in Contact Improvisation), generation becomes effortless.
This is where much “process music” gets it exactly backwards. All music is process music, but “process music” effectively flattens that fertile, generative nonlinear dynamic into a one-way textile mill.